7:21 AM 5/30/2010I have finally hooked my phone up to my computer and put some of my music on it. The only person who has a custom ringtone so far is my best friend, who has "White Reflection" (I, um, don't expect anybody but me to understand why, but I feel it important to note that I think this choice is hilarious).

7:43 AM 5/30/2010Also my noise for incoming texts and the like is the TNG communicator chirp. I find this hilarious also. I have moved no few Star Trek sound effects (and also several bits of Fingertips, and "I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today") into my ringtones folder.

2:49 PM 5/30/2010Talked to best friend on phone. Funtimes had by all. <3

5:27 AM 6/1/2010Sleep schedule has been ... entertaining.

Missed walkies/shopping with aunt today because I was getting ready for Monthly Epic Shopping with Tif. There might have been time, there might not have; I thought there was not so I didn't bother texting (she IMed while I was in the shower, and was signed off by the time I got out). Tif said there was equipment to haul, so I switched the car into Epic Stuff-Hauling Mode.

I arrived before Tif was quite ready, and amused myself with internet-on-phone. We repaired to IHOP (when I can't quite find my words, I sign it with the letter 'I', hopping to one side) and had dinner. There were shenanigans with the iced tea (presweetened and with lemon, the first time around) and I popped into the bathroom to behold that, to my horror, there were what looked like footprints (shoe-soles, not bare feet) on the seat of the toilet in the accessible/changing room stall. (There are two stalls in the ladies'.) I told Twitter. Giggling in horror, I popped my head into the kitchen and advised staff. (Staff are in no wise responsible for the appalling behaviour of some of their customers.) Then I giggled about it with Tif. I diagrammed the function of the cafetière à piston, as well as my happy little IKEA espresso pot (seriously, the original is in the $40-$50 range, and this was under $15, SCORE), and my milk vibrator (again, the same sort of thing is running for ~$20 on Amazon, and <$3 at IKEA. <3 indeed!)

I have been experimenting with caffeine to help me focus better. Upon waking up, I pop my St. John's Wort, and a 200mg caffeine pill. It is perhaps worthwhile to note that I did indeed remember this upon waking up. And since it was such a short time between time-to-leave and planned time-for-dinner, and I knew that I was starting to run low on blood sugar, but shouldn't eat a full meal, in lieu of that, I grabbed a can of Dew out of the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. And then at dinner, I had more Dew (two glasses: one small, one large).

Thus fortified, we proceeded to the home of the person Tif had been chatting with on Freecycle. It was a piece of semi-portable home exercise equipment: it folded flat enough to fit neatly in the trunk (though it was just as well that I'd moved the water jug and IKEA bag of emergency equipment to the footwells of the back seat), and she only needed a little help hefting the thing.

Onward to Target! This is a regular stop on the monthly expeditions. We poked at clothes, went on to kitchenwares, and then Tif realized that coffee would be very good and the in-store Starbucks was probably about to close. So we scampered for that, and coffee was obtained.

Over our respective coffees, I explained to Tif one of the other factors in my aversion to artificial sweeteners: if I have caffeine without appropriate buffer, usually in the form of carbohydrates ("with" is either soon-prior, immediately with, or directly-after), I burn through my personal reserve energy, then I crash out and go zzzthunk. That is actually not how we want to do things! So it's not a good idea for me to get used to having caffeine without sugar to balance things out, so if I go hyper, I do so in a fashion that won't result in an annoying and/or scary crash.

There was then more looking at clothing and stuff and so forth; I looked at supersoakers while she looked at dolls, and I gave my opinion on which doll would make the best Uhura.

I looked at makeup, but I have powder already, and in any case even the cool-toned powder in that display was too orange for my face at the correct darkness. I will have to makeupgeek with Tif at some point, because apparently when I do bother to do makeup, I do it reasonably well. I actually did makeup today, and therefore I shall share what I did. My skin is often reasonable with me if I'm reasonable with it. Therefore, I don't hassle it with foundation, and it doesn't hassle me unless I neglect to wash it on a regular basis, and/or have screaming hormone problems. ("A regular basis" here is no less often than every eight hours, and often more like every two hours, with a vigorous rubbing with a hot washcloth preferred; showers include mandatory wash with anti-acne product.) I do have a few unsightly red patches on my chin. (It is not painful; I have had them since some time in my youth.) I have a stick of heavy concealer that just about matches my skin tone, although a bit yellower. (This stick is therefore semi-optimized for concealing under-eye bruising.) I paste this over any bits of my face that I don't like today, and blend it in to the rest of my face. I use a light hand applying it, and I muddle the whole thing around so it's sitting on my face better: it looks like I swabbed my face with greasepaint otherwise. I take special care to blend the edges into the rest of my skin. I lightly dab powder over any areas that I have painted over with concealer, and sort of vaguely dust powder on other places on my face, like my nose. I don't put any powder on the pink parts of my cheeks.

I actually have lipliner. Depending on my face's mood, I either color in the edges of my lips and blend a bit toward the center, or color in my whole lips with the liner, or use the lip crayon I have. If my lips are feeling pale (I know I might be illin' in some fashion) I color in the whole thing with something that will stick around. Then I put lipstick on top. I like medium-dark lipsticks, rose, magenta, plum, with sparkle. Sometimes I put sparkle gloss on, on top of that. Today was one of those days.

I don't often do eye makeup, but today was also one of those days. Today's eye makeup was eyeliner. I was a bit klutzy, so I put on more eyeliner than I intended (first by accident and then following Adam Lambert's advice, to just smudge it and make it look deliberate), a thick messy line, extending out the full length of where you see my stupidly-long eyelashes, echoing their upward curve at the end. Then I had to do my other eye on purpose like I'd done the first one by accident. It looked a little too much, so I took the concealer and used it as eyeshadow, for a dark eyeliner line and then light eyelids above that. I didn't put anything on my browbone or anything stupid like that, just the eyeliner and the lids.

And that was it. Lactose intolerance is not fun for any part of any family. :(

Then we went to Safeway. By this time, all the caffeine was starting to catch up to me, and I was ... er ... energetic. With the pacing. And the dancing. And the complete lack of filter between brain and mouth. And Calico talking to me in my head. ("Someone's trying to say something to me, and I don't know what language it is!") I ... this is perhaps one of those things that is Not Normal -- if I cannot make a sound coming in through my ears match a known-word pattern, I am basically unable to do anything with it, sometimes including remember what it was in any more precision than notes, number of syllables, and sometimes vowels and a few consonants. There are people who can accurately reproduce meaningless-to-them sounds down to the last obscure-human-sounds detail. I am not one of them. Even if it sounds like it should be a word I know, if I can't find a match, I'm very lost. Once upon a time, MissKat tried to say "Mathsie" to me, and I missed the "hs" in the transmission, it came in "Matty", I know no Matty, and we had to spend five minutes untangling, because while I can make weird shape-patterns that come in via eyes maybe match a real word, it doesn't often work quite like that with ear-input.

The checkout dude didn't seem quite right.

There was a probably-homeless dude who rolled up to go through the recycling just as we were cruising in to get groceries all put away, and that caused a delay, since there was an understandable reluctance to get out and commence the unloading of groceries in his direct vicinity. So we waited and chatted. He went on about his rounds (and apparently recycletrash-picking is immensely illegal) and we got everything unloaded and up.

And good times were had by all.

4:33 AM 6/2/2010PSA (mostly DW folks, but LJ can put stuff in the comment if there's enough room): remember to describe your icons, particularly if you have low vision/text-only-browser folks in your usual crowd, and particularly the icons you use in public spaces like news comments, official communities, and open-membership communities.

[part 1 of the fabulous birthday goes here, as far as timeline]

8:44 AM 6/4/2010Waiiiih, can't sleep.

[then fabulous birthday party goes somewhere in here]

[followed by housewarming]

8:40 PM 6/5/2010CONSTANCE CHARITY O'NEILL, ARE YOU EVEN *ALLOWED* TO WRITE MYTHBUSTERS/ST:'09 FUSION?!?! WITH NORA???!?! Look. norabombay exists in this universe. You exist in that one. 'k?

9:51 PM 6/5/2010Went to next-oldest cousin's housewarming (this being the younger of Uncle Davy's two), saw a whole bunch of relatives, drank perhaps more hard hard lemonade than I should have been having on not very much lunch (two bottles), came back. L.A. is hot.

5:46 AM 6/6/2010Apparently it is now warm enough that I should be sleeping with a fan. Therefore, I have located my tinyfan and made it properly aimed at the bed.